Washington state politicians defending their brand-new carbon pricing program from Republican attacks can look to the south for guidance.
California politicians faced strikingly similar hurdles on their way to establishing the nation’s first economywide carbon-trading system, now more than a decade old, including a ballot initiative and lawsuits to overturn it.
Whether Washington’s program can navigate the same obstacles will shed light on the durability of state-level climate programs — and to what extent ambitious Democrats like Gov. Jay Inslee and Gov. Gavin Newsom can continue trying to stake their reputations on tackling climate change.
“I see a lot of parallels with California,” said Washington state Democratic Sen. Joe Nguyen, the chair of the chamber’s environmental committee and co-sponsor of the law that authorized the program. “The lesson is that we have to be prepared.”